9 graphs for 5 dollars

Sometime back I had converted the Singapore 2014 budget to json files so I could create a visualization. I converted a few files from India’s 2014 budget. Singapore’s budget was manageable, India’s isn’t. I wanted to try to convert them using a service like Amazon Mechanical Turk. It turns out that the Turk can only be used if you are in the U.S. I then decided to use Fiverr - where you can get jobs done for five dollars.

After I posted my ‘gig’, I got around 40 proposals. I corresponded with a few. I think I got lucky with the person I chose. After awarding him the gig, he created 9 excel files from the original pdfs. I gave 2 rounds of feedback on email. Some of the others that I had corresponded had proposed converting 3 files. For data entry type jobs, there are many who promise two to three hours of work for $5. I think the 9 files I converted might have taken the ‘seller’ between three and four hours.

I then converted the xls files to json as explained in a previous post.

What this means is that I can convert a complex budget like India’s to json/d3js for $30, a simple budget like the U.S. or Singapore for $15.

Here are the charts I converted (NOTE: I need to verify the data. I will do that and repost a separate post):

4. Surprisingly (for me) it took a few iterations for the sellers to understand what I am looking for.

5. I chose dkalyani – he actually sent me a sample file. I had to keep telling the sellers not to start. I think I got lucky with this guy

dkalyani – seller on Fiverr

He sent me a few files after he created them. I provided feedback. He then completed 9 files.

Learning

I suspect it make take some trial and error to find a good seller, especially for work like this.

In this case it doesn’t matter if there are a few mistakes. If you want to reduce mistakes you can probably get another seller to check the results.

When you make a process more efficient expect there to be delays further downstream. It’s one thing to get a large number of files converted. You need to plan in advance for the time it takes to review the submission. I think it was lucky it worked for me. It’s a good idea to plan for this part of the project (unfortunately, this is your/my problem).